The demand for hydrocarbons useful as fuels and fuel components, originating from renewable sources increases worldwide. At the same time requirements with respect to the composition and quality of fuels and fuel components become more restricted. Particularly, legislation and standards concerning transportation fuels in many countries set limits for various components in said fuels. For example, the standard MK1 in Sweden requires that the diesel fuel on the Swedish market contains not more than 5% by weight of aromatic compounds.
Hydroprocessing is widely used for converting feedstock originating from renewable materials to hydrocarbons. However, the composition of the obtained hydrocarbon product varies and in many cases the aromatics content exceeds the limit of 5% by weight.
When renewable materials comprising substantial amounts of aromatics and/or cyclic structures containing unsaturated bonds are subjected to hydroprocessing, the content of said compounds in the feedstock and aromatizing—dearomatizing reaction equilibrium have an effect on the aromatics content in the final hydrocarbon product. Thus, in the field it has been regarded necessary to use feedstock having low content of aromatics and/or cyclic structures containing unsaturated bonds, for obtaining products meeting the tight requirements for aromatic contents.
Despite the ongoing research and development, there is still a need to provide improved processes and methods for converting feedstock originating from renewable materials to hydrocarbon products comprising low amounts of aromatics, in an efficient and economical way.